embRACE LA 2019
Results from Community Survey and Council Dinners
Advancement Project California
Overview
Between September 10th and November 26th, 2019, embRACE LA:
* collected 542 online surveys from Angelinos who either live, work, or study in the city(i);
* held 11 conversations with city council members; and
* collected 112 pre-conversation and 80 post-conversation surveys from dinner participants.
The following reviews the results from the surveys and dinner conversations. Key takeaways include:
* Angelinos who participated in embRACE LA (either through the survye or dinner conversations) generally do not believe LA City is an equitable and inclusive place to live.
* Housing is viewed as a major barrier to creating greater equity as is racism and discrimination.
* Many do no trust the city to treat people equally or provide equal city services. * The overwhelming majority believe the city should prioritize equity and the great majority of embRACE dinner participants support an ORE.
* Community respondents and dinner participants prioritize activities for the ORE that involve tangible investments in community, like applying equitable budgeting tools to invest based on need, investing in local minority-owneded businesses, providing grants to local organizations working on equity, and hiring diverse city staff from local communities.
*(i)Note: A total of 567 community surveys were gathered on the website, but only 542 of these were from individuals who reported either living, working, or studying in LA City. This analysis does not include the 25 individuals without a connection to LA City.
Vision for an equitable LA City
- During conversations, dinner participants imagined an equitable and inclusive LA City as a place with equal access to opportunity for all-placeholder
How equitable is LA City?
Only 22% of Angelinos who took the survey agreed or strongly agreed that LA City is an equitable and inclusive place to live for people of all races and ethnicities.
Only 26% of people attending our dinners agreed or strongly agreed with the same statement.
Community respondents most frequently ranked housing affordability, gentrification and displacement, and racism and discrimination as the top 3 barriers to creating a more equitable LA. In fact, over 50% of respondents thought housing affordability was one of the top 3 barriers to greater equity in LA City.
Dinner participants most frequently ranked housing affordability, income, and racism and discrimination as the top 3 barriers to creating a more equitable LA.
Over 50% of both community respondents and dinner participants thought housing affordability was one of the top 3 barriers to greater equity in LA.
30% or more of both community respondents and dinner participants thought racism and discrimination was one of the top 3 barriers to greater equity in LA.
About 3 in 4 of community respondents had little or no trust in the city to provide equal city services (X%) or equal opportunities to participate in decision-making for all people (X%).
Dinner participants were slightly more trusting of the city though than 50% of reported little trust or no trust at all in the city to treat people of all races and ethnicities equally equal city services, equal opportunities to participate in city decision-making, or generally equal treatment.
Is LA City equitable
What community members said
What dinner participants said
Top barriers to equity
What community members said.
| Count | Percent | |
|---|---|---|
| Housing affordability | 310 | 57 |
| Gentrification and displacement | 201 | 37 |
| Racism and discrimination | 184 | 34 |
| Public participation | 29 | 5 |
| Environmental justice | 29 | 5 |
| Public safety | 28 | 5 |
| Food security | 22 | 4 |
| City services | 14 | 3 |
What dinner participants said
| Count | Percent | |
|---|---|---|
| Housing affordability | 58 | 52 |
| Income | 35 | 31 |
| Racism and discrimination | 34 | 30 |
| Food security | 6 | 5 |
| Infrastructure | 5 | 4 |
| City services | 3 | 3 |
Trust in City government
What community members said
What dinner participants said
How much to prioritize equity and the ORE?
- Over 4 out of 5 survey respondents (84%) and dinner participants (84%) believed creating greater equity and inclusivity in our city should be a HIGH priority for LA City government and officials.
- Over 4 in 5 people attending our dinners (85%) supported or strongly supported created an Office of Racial Equity in LA City.
How much to prioritize equity
What community members said
What dinner participants said
Degree of support for an ORE
What dinner participants said
What should an ORE do?
Community respondents most frequently thought the city should invest dollars based on community need (69%), invest in local minority-owned businesses (64%), and make grants to local organizations that are addressing racial equity (60%) in order to work toward greater equity in LA.
When asked to prioritize what the city should do first with an ORE, dinner participants prioritized applying equitable budgeting tools to make city investments based on need (19%).
When asked to rate the potential of ORE activities to impact racial equity, dinner participants most often rated local minority-owned business (76%), application of equitable budgeting tools (75%), hiring of diverse staff from local communities (69%), and grants to local community organizations (68%) as having a potentially “high” impact on racial equity.
What should LA City do
What community members said
| Count | Percent | |
|---|---|---|
| City investments and dollars distributed based on community need | 371 | 69% |
| Investments in local minority-owned businesses | 343 | 64% |
| Grants to local community organizations that are addressing racial equity | 325 | 60% |
| Conversations between City staff and community members about community needs | 296 | 55% |
| Collecting and analyzing data on racial equity and sharing it with the public | 291 | 54% |
| Opportunities and spaces for communities to come together on their own and solve issues | 250 | 46% |
| Guided conversations between community members about race and racism | 238 | 44% |
ORE’s first step
What dinner participants said
| Activity | Count | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Application of equitable budgeting tools to make city investments based on need | 15 | 19% |
| Hiring diverse city staff from local communities | 9 | 11% |
| Investments in local minority-owned businesses | 9 | 11% |
| Application of a Racial Equity Impact analysis for city officials to use when making policy decisions | 8 | 10% |
| Grants to local community organizations that are addressing racial equity | 3 | 4% |
| Trainings for city staff on implicit bias, race, and racism | 2 | 3% |
Activities based on highest impact
What dinner participants said
| Activity | Count | Percent High Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Investments in local minority-owned businesses. | 61 | 1% |
| Application of equitable budgeting tools to make city investments based on community need. | 59 | 1% |
| Hiring diverse city staff from local communities. | 55 | 1% |
| Grants to local community organizations that are addressing racial equity. | 54 | 1% |
| Application of a Racial Equity Impact analysis for city officials to use when making policy decisions. | 50 | 1% |
| Collecting and analyzing data on racial equity and sharing it with the public. | 50 | 1% |
| Trainings for city staff on implicit bias, race and racism. | 49 | 1% |
| Trainings for community residents on how to participate in city government. | 49 | 1% |
| Setting racial equity action plans that outline vision, strategies, and actions for the office and city departments. | 47 | 1% |
| Guided conversations between community members about race and racism. | 47 | 1% |
| Establishment of a community oversight commission for the Office of Racial Equity. | 44 | 1% |
| Implementation of civic engagement standards to improve public participation in city decision-making. | 44 | 1% |
Demographics
Map of Survey Respondents
Respondents who live in LA
Zip codes of respondents who indicated they live in LA. Size of data represents number of individuals who reponded at that zip code
Reading layer `CnclDist_July2012' from data source `W:\Project\OSI\EmbRACELA\Data\CommunitySurvey\CnclDist_July2012\CnclDist_July2012.shp' using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
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Reading layer `CnclDist_July2012' from data source `W:\Project\OSI\EmbRACELA\Data\CommunitySurvey\CnclDist_July2012\CnclDist_July2012.shp' using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
Simple feature collection with 15 features and 10 fields
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Community survey respondents
Dinner participants
Length of tenure in LA
Community survey respondents
Dinner participants
Gender
Community survey respondents
Dinner participants
Age
Community survey respondents
Dinner participants
Civic engagement activities
On average, people attending our dinners had participated in X civic engagement activities over the past year, more than community survey respondents
Community survey respondents
| Response | Count | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Voted in an election | 388 | 72% |
| Signed a petition in-person or online | 372 | 69% |
| Volunteered in my community | 347 | 64% |
Dinner participants
| Activity | Count | Percent (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Volunteered in my community | 92 | 82% |
| Attended a community meeting | 92 | 82% |
| Attended a public meeting | 87 | 78% |
| Met with a government representative | 74 | 66% |
| Voted in an election | 74 | 66% |